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Robots to the rescue
In the past, robots were designed for factories. Americans became upset when they lost jobs on the production line to mechanized arms that could do more work in less time — without salaries, health insurance, sick days, or vacations. Robots were big and clunky. Humans were kept away from them.
Today, that’s rapidly changing. New robot systems are soft and safe to be around, and even can be wearable. Robotics has never looked so people-friendly.
In keeping with the changing times and attitudes, more than 200 people representing 18 companies and 20 universities from as far south as Washington, D.C., and as far west as Michigan attended the sold-out Second Annual Northeast Robotics Colloquium at Harvard last weekend.
Conor Walsh, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is one of the pioneers of this new robotic world, and he presented his work to the conference.
Demonstrating the soft exosuit he has been developing, Walsh said, “We are designing robots specifically for people.” It’s a “totally different way than what people have done for 50 years,” he said.
Walsh’s exosuits are designed to be worn, and thus are pliable and moveable, with no resistance in movement. Walsh said the exosuit involves “smart interfacing with the body and smart ways to send information,” and enables the wearer to walk with less muscle activation. That might sound relaxing, but it’s not about being lazy. The exosuit has medical, military, and recreational applications. For instance, a recovering stroke patient could don the suit to help to restore his or her level of muscle function, allowing a better integration back into the community.
The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is especially useful for the military. Soldiers carry heavy loads for long periods. The suit “delays the onset of fatigue and protects the joints from injury,” by taking on a portion of the stress and movement from its wearer, Walsh said.
The suit can help people who have trouble moving, but cannot help people with paralysis.
Walsh and his team of Harvard faculty, grad students, postdocs, and research staff also developed a “soft disposable elastomeric robot” — in layman’s terms, a robotic cast that provides physical therapy while patients recover from injury.
For example, a cast is usually applied to a broken hand. But a casts doesn’t allow the hand or fingers to move at all, so when it comes off, the hand is stiff.
But a soft disposable, elastomeric robot cast, can be plugged into a small battery pack four times a day and will then move the hand and fingers through a range of motions pre-set by a physical therapist, essentially administering physical therapy while the patient heals.
Robert Howe, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering at SEAS, presented his i-HY, an open-source robotic hand developed and named for Harvard-Yale, the other university with which he collaborates. The i-HY hand “combines optimized passive mechanics with five motors that can use precision fingertip grasps.”
If, for example, a hurricane destroyed a power center, it would be too dangerous for humans to enter the facility to make repairs. But a robot equipped with an i-HY hand could be able to do the job. The goal, Howe said, is to have human-quality hand manipulation: “Robot hands for the real world.”
Howe said, “Real-world robustness and low cost are essential.” But after years of research, untold money, and hundreds of Ph.D. dissertations, “We still can’t do it. Forty papers have been published since the ’80s. None are able to do unstructured environment manipulation.”
So Howe left old dogmas behind and turned to the lobster as a model, creating a prototype with a 3-D printer, a three-fingered hand that can do everything from a pinch to a wrap grasp. He realized that a “hand doesn’t have to have the same dexterity as the human hand” to be effective. The i-HY also has sensors, and Howe encouraged the conference attendees to download the program and let him know the results.
The Northeast Robotics Colloquium was sponsored by Jaybridge Robotics and the Wyss Institute.
Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/10/robots-to-the-rescue/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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